Thoughts on Selected Recent Data & Analytics M&A Transactions
TL;DR - An active period of Governance, Risk and Compliance investments
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As the Asymmetric Advantage Database has been growing, the number of logged M&A transactions has grown too.
I thought it might be useful from time to time to flag up recent Data & Analytics M&A transactions here and do a little thinking about what is interesting about them.
I did this in my last post, but it was somewhat lost amongst the thinking about Nearmap. I have repeated that content again here, below new writing about more recent transactions.
There has been a real rush of GRC deals in the last fortnight, reflecting what a core focus this is for both investors and strategics.
A couple of Earth Observation transactions are also noteworthy.
April 15 - Verdane-backed Verified, provider of products and digital solutions connected to the EU directives AMLD (Anti-Money Laundering), CSDDD (Third-party assessment) and eIDASD (Contract Lifecycle Management), has acquired GRC WATCH, a provider of due diligence and KYC data.
This is the first of two references to Verdane in this newsletter. The Nordic PE firm is a firm believer in buy-and-build strategies. Last year they purchased a majority stake in Verified, and backed its acquisitions of Assently and Pliance. And now Verified has acquired GRC Watch. Verdane estimate that the KYC and AML Data & Analytics market will be worth EUR4bn by 2027 and they are putting their money where their mouth is. Expect more bolt-ons to follow.
April 15 - Satellogic, sub-meter resolution Earth Observation data collection provider, announces $30m strategic investment from Tether, stablecoin technology provider.
I have asked a few ITK crypto insiders to explain this one to me and no-one has yet been able to. Why is the creator of a stablecoin lending money to an Earth Observation data provider? There is no rationale that I can see. Perhaps they have too much money sloshing about…
April 10 - Corlytics, provider of regulatory intelligence and policy compliance technology, received a majority stake investment from Verdane. The amount of the deal was not disclosed. The company intends to use the funds to consolidate its global category leadership, accelerating organic growth and M&A.
I’ve been tracking Corlytics since its foundation by industry veteran John Byrne. Verdane is their first serious PE investor, and seem likely (see the note on Verified above) to help them on their existing strategy of driving both organic and inorganic growth. Corlytics made two acquisitions last year - ING SparQ in January and Clausematch in July - and more seem likely to follow.
April 9 - Entrust, payments, identities, and data security specialist, acquired Onfido, an identity verification company. The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
A massive success story, Onfido had grown revenues to roughly $140m since its foundation in 2012. A diversified investor group has made money here, including TPG Growth, Bain Capital, M12, Salesforce Ventures, Wellington, Augmentum, a host of angels, and the Oxford Saïd Business School’s Seed Fund. The latter made an 80x ROI!
That Onfido has done so well is not a surprise - online identity verification is a large and fast-growing sector. But the acquirer was not expected - a listed or PE-backed entity seemed more likely. Entrust is neither. Learn more about their history here.
April 9th - Rimes, Provider of EDM (enterprise data management)-as-a-Service and investment platform solutions to the global investment community, has been acquired by Five Arrows, the alternative assets arm of Rothschild & Co, from EQT.
Five Arrows have history of acquiring fintech businesses serving Trading - they sold Pirum to Bowmark back in 2019, for example - so it’s not a surprise to see them buy this industry stalwart. EQT held the asset for 4 years, bolting on one acquisition in that time. The process kicked off in October last year and the valuation at that time was reportedly $2.1bn.
April 5th - Credit data firm Experian has agreed to buy Illion, one of the leading consumer and commercial credit bureaux in Australia and New Zealand, for up to AUD820m (£427.2m).
This deal has felt like an inevitability for a long time. Experian has been hoovering up regional credit bureaux for over a decade. The price seems very reasonable for this sector given that reported EBITDA was AUD65m.
April 2nd - Descartes Labs, a leading provider of geospatial analytics and artificial intelligence solutions, acquired all of the operating assets of Geosite, a SaaS provider of geospatial intelligence to property and casualty insurance companies.
Antarctica Capital are building an interesting portfolio of Data & Analytics businesses. After investing in Descartes Labs in August 2022 it’s not a surprise to see them back this bolt-on acquisition which brings them into the P&C insurance market (of which more in the rest of this post!)
Great content recently consumed:
Ikona Partners shared their recent Data-as-a-Service (another name for Data & Analytics (although also incorporating Analytics/Business Intelligence software)) Canvas with me a couple of weeks ago. An extremely thorough overview of M&A trends in the market. Worth a close look.
From
- Henry Schuck’s Founder’s Letter for ZoomInfo’s S-1 filing. Worth reading partly as a reminder of what it takes to build a great sales operation: